ALUN MICHAEL, the Rural Affairs Minister, has run for cover as hunts nationwide chase his scent.
For the second time since MPs voted to force through a ban on hunting with dogs, the beleaguered Minister cancelled an arrangement on police advice.
Yesterday Mr Michael even scrapped a boat trip after pro-hunting protesters arrived in a small flotilla off the Dorset coast and threatened to pursue him.
Pursued he may be, but Mr Michael insists that he has not gone to ground. He also denies suggestions by the Countryside Alliance, a pro-hunting group, that the countryside is a “no-go area” for him.
Mr Michael was thought to be in his Cardiff South and Penarth constituency last night, possibly making him a quarry for Welsh huntsmen and terriermen.
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Activists appear able to sniff out his likely whereabouts even when his engagements have not been announced.
He is billed to speak at the annual conference of the Association of National Parks Authorities in the West Country tomorrow, but a spokeswoman at the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs could not confirm that he would appear.
She said: “It is recess. The diary is fluid and we do not routinely announce ministers’ engagements each day.”
Mr Michael set out from his South Wales home early yesterday in time for the announcement of the Friends of the Jurassic Coast organisation in Dorset. The original plan was for him to attend a function on a Waverley paddle-steamer in Weymouth and then tour the world heritage coast by boat to Swanage.
About 200 hunt protesters turned up at the quayside and a flotilla of boats owned by protesters was ready to tail the paddle steamer on the water. Instead the event venue was switched to Durdle Dor in Dorset, and the boat trip was cancelled by bad weather according to A Defra spokeswoman.
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In a statement Mr Michael said: “On police advice about the difficulty of policing an event which included a vessel at the quayside and at sea, I have decided to withdraw from that part of the launch. It is not part of my purpose to allow the launch of this important trust to be hijacked by pro-hunting protesters just by my presence.”
Mr Michael said he was “very disappointed” that he had to cancel his plan to join walkers for the historic national launch of the new “right to roam” laws in Lancashire and the Peak District again on police advice.
He also spoke out about his hounding by protesters and said: “I don’t understand the mind set of the people who are suggesting that they would chase ministers around the countryside. The decision taken last Wednesday was taken by Members of Parliament and I can’t quite see what the point is of making ministers’ lives a misery.”
He feels particularly aggrieved because he had spent the past couple of weeks persuading Labour MPs to delay the start of a hunting ban so that people could adjust to the reality of the impact of the new legislation. He admitted he had been warned by senior hunt figures that they were concerned what some extremists may do, but said he was more worried about some of “the violence of the rhetoric” he had heard during the Parliament Square protest.
The minister raised these concerns with John Jackson, alliance chairman, in a letter last week. Mr Jackson, in a stinging rebuke to the minister, blamed Mr Michael for the current situation.
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He said: “I have lost count of the times that I have told you that, if you did not keep your promise to address the question of hunting on principle and evidence, the countryside would erupt in fury. That is now happening.”
Mr Jackson denounced the minister as “politically craven” for allowing a government measure to wreck his original proposals that would have allowed some licensed hunting to survive.
He then railed against the minister for suggesting that the rural community had the chance to vote out the Government with its massive urban majority at the ballot box and said the remarks were “more than inflammatory, they were tyrannical and cruel”.
He said: “This is exactly the kind of situation of which John Stuart Mill warned when he spoke of the tyranny of the majority.”
The alliance is to hold a protest at the Labour Party conference in Brighton next Tuesday. Sussex Police are unhappy about the plan but alliance organisers gave warning in negotiations yesterday that protesters would turn up regardless and that it would be better to have an agreed plan.
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Anti-hunt campaigners last night suggested it was too late for the Prime Minister to try to compromise on hunting. Douglas Batchelor, chief executive of the League Against Cruel Sports, said: “Tony Blair knew there would be all this fuss in the country and we know that if a Bill cannot be agreed with the Lords the Parliament Act is automatic.”